Mandy Dreeland stands on the Rice’s Creek dock, noting that water levels already look higher than normal a day before Florence’s expected arrival.
Photograph: Khushbu Shah for the Guardian

On a map, the tiny “town” of Rice’s Creek, half a dozen trailer homes named after the body of water they sit by, doesn’t exist. If Hurricane Florence inflicts the damage it is expected to through its storm surge and flash flooding, it may also cease to exist in a real-world sense too.

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With a population of just 27, the tight-knit North Carolina community started off the week united, promising to weather the storm together on low-lying ground by the creek. By Wednesday afternoon, though, John Silvy’s daughter called him from Athens, Georgia, demanding he come down and bring her two young brothers to secure ground.

“If it was just me ’cause I got good friends here, I would stay. I wouldn’t be worried about it. We look out for each other. The kids are my bigger concern,” the 50-year-old father of seven said as he walked over to his neighbors’ house for an impromptu visit in the front yard.

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Rice’s Creek is technically in Winnabow (population 6,000) in Brunswick county, which is under a mandatory evacuation and a state of emergency. People in mobile homes have also been asked to evacuate. But for these friends and neighbors, that’s a double evacuation order most are not heeding.

Alex Tatum and Mandy Dreeland discuss leaving their home a day before Florence is set to pummel the Carolina coast. Photograph: Khushbu Shah for the Guardian

The creek, where Silvy’s kids swim, was already higher than usual and overflowing its banks. The low-lying area – a resident estimated it to be a couple of feet above sea level – could make the hurricane a significant threat to those who choose to stay. Unlike the much wealthier, more established neighborhoods on nearby Wrightsville Beach, there’s no police checkpoint in Rice’s Creek to make sure people follow curfews and evacuation orders.

Disappointed his neighbor is leaving, Alex Tatum, Silvy’s neighbor on one side, nursed a Yuengling beer, and walked over to his neighbor to justify his staying. A resident of the self-proclaimed town for more than six years, the commercial fish business owner has covered the windows on his wooden double wide trailer home with plywood and intends to stay.

“All we got is our work and money. And our house,” he said to his girlfriend of one year, Mandy Dreeland, trying to convince her that staying was the best option.

She wasn’t buying it. “Even if the storm shifts, we’re not escaping it,” she responded from a chair on the porch, continuing, “When it rains, the water comes up to the mailbox.”

Tatum, unable to help himself, joined in on recent weather horror stories. “The building, when you first come into [Rice’s Creek] was underwater at one point,” he added.

Dreeland cut him off. “And he wants to stay.”

The two continued for a few minutes, mentioning snakes and the baby alligator spotted in the green-watered creek the other day.

Planning to live days, if not weeks, without electricity, 26-year-old Tatum and Dreeland, 27, spent $600 on batteries, tortilla chips, Pringles, potato rolls, flashlights, tuna, chicken and rice soup, Gatorade and beer to survive in potential darkness after Hurricane Florence’s looming wrath. Their dog, Bella, is prepared with her own set of supplies. But what Tatum, 26, hesitated to buy last week may force them to flee at the last minute.

“I had my hand on [a generator] Friday and I should have bought it but I waited until Sunday and now they’re all sold out,” he lamented, taking a puff of his cigarette.

Raymond Hill has lived in his home by Rice’s Creek since 2004. He hasn’t evacuated for any other storm and he won’t for Florence, either. Photograph: Khushbu Shah for the Guardian

Across from Tatum and Dreeland’s four-bedroom, right next to Silvy’s white wooden home, Raymond Hill’s home sits under a canopy of pine trees. He has already sent his wife to his daughter’s home five miles away on potentially drier ground.

Hill won’t be joining her. “It’s mine,” he laughed, leaning on the patio with his bottle of 7Up, pointing towards his home from his porch, “and I paid for it.” More importantly, he added, “We keep a small dog and our dog is like our own young’un.”

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Shelters are out of the question. Hill, shaking his head, ticked off a list: “I don’t need a generator, I don’t need gas, I’ve got lanterns, I’ve got everything I need. And my wife made sure I had canned food and food in the freezer.”

The curly white-haired grandfather explained why he should stay by describing a litany of previous waterlogged incidents that left the community in one piece, albeit soggy.

“When Floyd came through here [in 1999] that used to be a bar and the pool tables inside of it were underwater,” he said, pointing out a small red building at the end of the road. “Matthew wasn’t too bad,” he continued. What was bad was Hazel, the 1954 category four storm that struck the Carolina coast. “My daddy was here when Hazel come through and he said he went floating up the river on top of the house,” he said.

Not wanting to be outdone, other neighbors shared their rising water stories. Tim Buck, in a black Harley-Davidson shirt and a bandanna wrapped around his head, unlocked and whipped open a shed to show a line marking how high the water had been on 21 September 1999, just days before Hurricane Floyd.

Neighbors in Rice’s Creek chat outside Alex Tatum’s home near coastal North Carolina a day before Hurricane Florence was expected to hit. Photograph: Khushbu Shah for the Guardian

“This high,” hunching down to measure nearly four feet, Buck guessed. Oh, he’s not leaving, he confirms, standing on the boat dock over the water, but he has put two motorcycles on higher ground away from the neighborhood.

“I’m staying because I have everything invested in this little place right here. When you get to 60 …” he started to say before cutting himself off. Then, “Hell, I’ve probably nearly drowned twice already. I couldn’t swim a lick.”

Buck does have two trucks ready to get him and his wife out if the water rushes up, but that’s too far to think about until it happens, he said. “As long as it don’t take me and my family, I can part with tools and vehicles.”

Tatum agreed with his neighbor, except that he has spent $25,000 renovating his hardwood-floor-and-white-cabinets home this year over four months, only to be faced with his home being potentially turned into kindling. That’s why he has to stay, to make sure the house is OK, he repeated, a mantra.

Nobody in this row of neighbors has flood insurance, they realized, while standing in Buck’s yard drinking beers. They were silent for a moment before Tatum asked to borrow Buck’s coolers to fill up with ice and hopped back on the golf cart with his stepdad.

The final shared words that night among the group were nonchalant but also a warning.

Tatum’s stepfather started to drive off, stopped the cart and turned to Buck, “Let me know if you’re staying so I know who to look out for here.”